期末成绩暴跌，网课学了个寂寞

近日，美国各地本学年的第一份成绩单出炉，挂科人数远超往常。这正是学生远程学习过程中痛苦挣扎的真实写照。

美国各地的学区都表示，挂科学生的数量暴涨了两倍甚至三倍。而这其中，英语学习者、残疾学生以及贫困学生尤其深受远程学习之苦。

School districts from coast to coast have reported the number of students failing classes has risen by as many as two or three times — with English language learners and disabled and disadvantaged students suffering the most.

俄勒冈州麦克纳瑞高中校长Erik Jespersen说，“与往年相比，今年的情况完完全全偏离正轨，实在令人担忧。”该校学生10月底的不及格率高达38%，但往年这个数字应该只有8%。

“It was completely off the rails from what is normal for us, and that was obviously very alarming,” said Erik Jespersen, principal of Oregon‘s McNary High School, where 38% of grades in late October were failing, compared with 8% in normal times.

教育家们将这种现象归结于以下几个因素：在家上网课时，有些学生会不写作业甚至直接逃课。没有网络或信号不稳的情况让部分学生难以完成并上传作业。因为不能面对面接触学生，老师也很难发现哪些同学落下了，尤其是很多学生在Zoom课堂中不开摄像头。

Educators see a number of factors at play: Students learning from home skip assignments — or school altogether. Internet access is limited or inconsistent, making it difficult to complete and upload assignments. And teachers who don‘t see their students in person have fewer ways to pick up on who is falling behind, especially with many keeping their cameras off during Zoom sessions.

无论学区大小，美国各地都出现了挂科率增长的情形。

在Jespersen学校所在的Salem-Keizer公共学校学区，上千名的学生不仅在某些课程中得了“F”，有的得分甚至是0.0%，说明他们根本就没有参与课程学习。今年十月份，新墨西哥州有超过40%的初高中生都至少有一门课挂科。在休士顿，有42%的学生都在本学年的第一个评分季至少一门课评级为“F”。明尼苏达州圣保罗市的高中生中，将近40%的人评级为“F”，是平常年份的两倍。

At Jespersen’s school in the Salem-Keizer Public School district, hundreds of students initially had not just Fs, but grade scores of 0.0%, indicating they simply were not participating in school at all. In New Mexico, more than 40 percent of middle and high school students were failing at least one class as of late October. In Houston, 42% of students received at least one F in the first grading period of the year. Nearly 40% of grades for high school students in St. Paul, Minnesota, were Fs, double the amount in a typical year.

为了应对这种情况，学校正在努力拓展外展服务，优先帮助线上课程中遇到困难的学生回归线下面对面课程；而且学校会根据情况改变评分标准，给学生更多的时间来完成作业。

In response schools have been ramping up outreach efforts, prioritizing the return of struggling students for in-person learning and in some cases changing grading policies and giving students more time to complete assignments.

Jespersen表示，麦克纳里高中为大约300名学生提供帮助，师生进校进行线下小班教学，取得了一定成效。但因当地新冠感染人数上升，这种做法最近被叫停。学习顾问团队增加了与学生的接触，并且学校要求老师暂停给学生布置需要打分的作业。学校邀请拉美裔学生的父母参加了家长会，并在会上教他们如何在网上查询孩子的成绩。

Jespersen said his school began to see grades improve after bringing groups of 300 students into the building in small cohorts to receive support from teachers, although that recently stopped because of the region’s rising coronavirus cases. Advisory teams increased contact with students, and teachers were asked to temporarily stop assigning graded homework. Parents of Hispanic students were invited for a session to learn how to access their children’s grades online.

南卡罗莱纳州查尔斯顿市的教育行政管理者和老师提出，可以像他们在春季学期时那样调整评分标准。八年级英语老师Jody Stallings表示，春季学期时，学校要求老师给那些落下课的同学打50分，而不是0分，因为50分看起来没那么像惩罚。他说：“我是英语老师，不是数学老师，但我也知道零分对于普通学生来说是一种多么大的打击。”

In Charleston, South Carolina, administrators and teachers are raising the possibility of adjusting grading the way they did in spring, where instructors were told to give 50s instead of 0s to make it less punitive for disengaged students, eighth-grade English teacher Jody Stallings said. “I‘m an English teacher, not a math teacher, but I’ve learned zeros are very, very devastating to an average,” he said.

他打出的不及格分数大多是因为学生没能完成作业，而不是因为上交的作业漏洞百出。

Most of the failing grades he gives out come from missing assignments, not assignments that were turned in with a lot of wrong answers.

Stallings说：“随后你找他们谈心的时候他们会说：‘我确实就是没有做，因为我不知道答案。’但在面对面教学时，学生就会参加考试…… 哪怕他什么都不会，他至少还有得分的机会。”Stallings老师任教于莫尔特里中学，他所教的大部分学生是线下教学，与此同时有小部分学生参加线上课程。

“You talk to them later and they say, `You know I just didn‘t do it. I didn’t know the answer so I just didn‘t do it,’” said Stallings, who teaches most of his students in person and the rest online simultaneously at Moultrie Middle School. “When you have a kid in person, he‘s going to take the test … Even if he doesn’t know anything, he has a chance.”

疫情期间的挂科率也揭示了教育差距的鸿沟正不断扩大。

The failing grades during the pandemic have also revealed how equity gaps in the education system are growing.

费尔法克斯郡学校系统的一项分析发现，英语学习者和残疾学生是挂科率增长最明显的群体。相比之下，原来成绩优异的学生现在表现得比预期略好。

An analysis by the Fairfax County school system found that English language learners and students with disabilities were among those with the largest increases in failing grades. In contrast, students who performed well previously were performing slightly better than expected.

新墨西哥州哈奇市的高中注册主任布兰卡·拉米雷斯说，她在疫情期间开始充当那些只会说西班牙语的学生和家长的翻译、监察员和人生导师等角色。在谈话时，她问学生们怎么会考出这么差的成绩。

In Hatch, New Mexico, high school registrar Blanca Ramirez said her job has evolved during the pandemic to serve as translator, ombudsman and life coach to students and parents who speak only Spanish. In conversations, she asks students how they can have such low grades.

拉米雷斯说：“学生的第一反应是‘太难了，真的太难了’。”

“我发现很多时候孩子们甚至没有迈出第一步，因为他们害怕。其实只要打个电话鼓励他们，他们就愿意付出更多的努力，”拉米雷斯说。

“Come to find out a lot of the time for kids are not even doing their first attempt because I think they‘re afraid. And so just making that phone call opens up that encouragement and they start making a little bit more effort,” says Ramirez.

有时候，对学英语的学生而言，上网课最大的阻碍仅仅是他们无法登录Zoom或其他在线教育平台。这个学期，拉米雷斯和学生们在学校停车场见了几次面，每个人都戴着口罩，而她则教学生及其父母如何登录这些学习平台。

In some cases, the biggest barrier for an English-language learning student is simply that they‘ve been unable to log in to the Zoom calls and the online education platform that are key to attending classes. A few times this semester, Ramirez has had the students meet her in the school parking lot, everyone masked up, while she shows them and their parents how to log in.

现在，学校要求老师们少布置作业，并优先布置最重要的作业，鼓励老师们寻找新的教学方法来代替传统的讲座教学。评分体系也已经从100分制改为50分制，这样一来，由于没交作业而拿到零分的学生受到的打击就会小一些。

Now, teachers have been instructed to give less homework, prioritizing the most important assignments. They‘ve been encouraged to find alternatives to traditional lectures. Grading has been changed from a 100-point system to a 50-point so that missed assignments with zeroes hurt students less.